A convicted European drug trafficker dubbed the “Mafia’s foreign minister” will be deported to Italy after his capture in Caracas in a joint operation by Venezuelan and Italian police, authorities said on Tuesday.
Salvatore Miceli was caught at a Caracas hotel on Saturday, Venezuelan police said. He will be deported to Italy “in the coming days,” Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami told reporters.
Miceli was one of Europe’s top five drug traffickers, said Captain Antonello Parasiliti of the Carabinieri police in Trapani, who led the Italian police operation to arrest Miceli in Venezuela.
Parasiliti said during a telephone interview that Miceli worked as a middleman between Italy’s and South America’s organized crime groups, leading fellow mobsters to call him the “Mafia’s foreign minister” and “the chicken that lays golden eggs.”
Miceli had been under surveillance by Italian and Venezuelan police for three days before he was captured late Saturday, Italian police said.
Italian police said two other Italian suspects were also detained. They have not been identified.
Venezuelan authorities say Miceli is suspected of trafficking cocaine, heroin and morphine.
INTERPOL
Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble congratulated Italian and Venezuelan police in a statement on Monday, saying Miceli’s capture “will seriously undermine a close network of transnational organized crime groups.”
Miceli, 63, was born in Salemi, a town in western Sicily, and followed in the footsteps of his grandfather — local Mafia boss Salvatore Zizzo, Parasiliti said.
In the 1970s, Miceli was allegedly involved in a series of ransom kidnappings that helped fund drug trafficking clans in nearby Trapani.
Miceli was arrested in the early 1990s on drug trafficking and Mafia charges, but was later freed while awaiting trial and went on the run after being convicted in 2001, Parasiliti said.
He said a 2003 probe uncovered Miceli’s role as an intermediary between South American drug cartels, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta — leading authorities to issue another arrest warrant.
UNHARMED
Venezuelan TV on Monday showed police leading a handcuffed Miceli for forensic testing to demonstrate that he was not mistreated prior to deportation.
El Aissami said over the weekend that Miceli apparently tried to alter his features with plastic surgery, but Parasiliti dismissed that claim, saying the man looked very similar to photos taken 10 years ago, only older.
To avoid capture, Miceli ensured that people who came to meet him started out early in the morning — reaching him in the evening after changing clothes and taking elaborate routes to elude any followers, Parasiliti said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of